Faculty & Programs

Nelson Tansu, the Daniel E. ’39 and Patricia M.

The mention of smart cities may bring to mind visions of a sparkling future metropolis, churning smoothly and silently: gleaming monorails gliding by with nary a whisper, walkways whisking pedestrians to their destinations, wireless and instant access to information on demand, and lights brightening and dimming on cue as you enter or leave a room.

PBS39 News Tonight reporter Chloe Nouvelle interviews Rick Blum, the Robert W. Wieseman Endowed Professor in Electrical Engineering and the director of the Signal Processing and Communication Research Laboratory, about the importance of designing cyber physical systems, like power grids, with multiple layers of security and the ability to detect anomalies that could signal malicious activities. Ph.D.

According to Himanshu Jain, professor of materials science and engineering, the United States’ approach to graduate education has not changed much since the period after World War II.

What would it take to meet the world’s energy needs, sustainably, far into the foreseeable future? Perhaps creating energy the way the sun does, through nuclear fusion.

The structure of cross-linked polymeric gels is very similar to soft tissue―which is one reason that understanding this material is so critical, according to Kelly Schultz, assistant professor of chemical and b

Professor Israel E. Wachs, the G. Whitney Snyder Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, recently surpassed a landmark in citations.

As an embryo develops, tissues bend into complex three-dimensional shapes that lead to organs. Epithelial cells are the building blocks of this process, forming, for example, the outer layer of skin. They also line the blood vessels and organs of all animals.

These cells pack together tightly. To accommodate the curving that occurs during embryonic development, it has been assumed that epithelial cells adopt either columnar or bottle-like shapes.

However, a group of scientists dug deeper into this phenomenon and discovered a new geometric shape in the process.

Traditional, centralized power grids—where power is generated, transmitted and then distributed to users—is fast becoming a thing of the past. Such systems are inefficient and vulnerable to attack. In addition, renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, have led to more compact generators. For all these reasons, the future of power is power electronics-based microgrids.

A microgrid is exactly what it sounds like: a small grid. It consists of multiple distributed generators and loads and can work in both grid-connected- or autonomous- modes.